


Deduction

by Cheloya



Category: Pet Shop of Horrors
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 08:29:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10805493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheloya/pseuds/Cheloya
Summary: Imported, from 2006. He makes a good detective because he thinks like a good detective, but sometimes Leon Orcot thinks too well.





	1. Chapter 1

The first time he tries to enter, he stops with one hand on the door.  
  
He tries not to pause. He hates indecision. That split-second can mean the difference between life and death in his line of work, and he hates indecision the way he hates the fact his hair grows up in a funny whirl just behind his fringe, and the bastards the next precinct over who still give him parking tickets when he's plainclothes, even when he's working important cases and needs to get in and out fast, regardless.  
  
But there's something about the door, the first time, that warns him he'd do better to walk away - just duck his head and shoulder his way back into the shoving, seething mass of humanity that makes up the regular crowd in Chinatown, and never set foot near this petshop again.  
  
That's his gut talking, his gut making him hesitate, and he always listens to his gut. It's saved his life more than once, and he's grateful to his instincts.  
  
But something deeper and more cognitive shifts the door aside. It's only a petshop, no matter how venemous that lizard might or might not have been. It's just his suspicions getting the better of him. He shouldn't be so worked up about this.  
  
He'll always remember that he paused, that first time. He'll always remember that his instincts gave him the chance to get out, to walk away.  
  
He'll always remember, because he didn't listen to them, and after that it was all too little, too late.


	2. Chapter 2

After a night like the one he's had, Leon expects to sleep as though he's comatose. He falls asleep while he's dangling one arm off the bed, trying to reach the phone to take the receiver off the hook so his damn relatives won't wake him up in a few hours, wishing him happy Christmas.  
  
He expects not to have dreams. Or, if he has them, he expects that they'll be whacked out and chaotic, just like his day has been. But that's not the way his dreams go at all. Instead, he finds himself completely submerged in deep, sort of foggy water, with his clothes rippling out around him in little puffs of an icy current, and his jeans feeling rough and heavy against his legs.  
  
It's quiet, at least, he thinks with mild relief. No crazy holiday drivers honking their horns at him, here. No furious, abusive tirades from rolled down windows. It's nice. It's peaceful. He sort of thinks, in that weird, dream-like way, that drowning here would be okay.  
  
And then he hears a soft, hiccupping sound. A choked sort of gasp, the kind of sound you make when you're trying to strangle off the sadness that's forcing its way out your throat. Leon's heard plenty of victims weeping like that, helpless. Even though he knows it's stupid - he's under water, for crying out loud - he fans his arms through the water and looks around, trying to find the source.  
  
"M-mother... Mother...!"  
  
It's a quiet voice, almost child-like, and it comes from further down in the darkness of the water. Leon's eyes widen and he starts swimming downward, though his breath is getting sort of tight in his chest and he knows it's probably a better idea to start heading up toward the surface.  
  
But he can't see the surface. And somewhere below him, in the darkness, in the cold, there's a little girl, crying for him.  
  
"Help us, mother... please..."  
  
Not one little girl - two, and though this one sounds older, calmer than the first, there is still that tremor of fear, that edge of desperation that drives Leon's arms to pinwheel faster, to curse and rail against that burning in his lungs, the stinging of salt water at his eyes.  
  
"Mother! Mother! Help us! Reach out your -"  
  
Coughing, sputtering, drowning, _dying._  
  
"Reach out your damned hands! _Please!_ "  
  
And Leon reaches, reaches, strokes frantically downward, but he can feel himself being pulled backward, pulled away, even as a pale, sweet face appears out of the shadows, contorted with fear and grief.  
  
"Mother!"  
  
Her eyes are fixed upon him, and her hands reach for his hands.  
  
"Reach--"  
  
Leon's lips pull back in a ferocious snarl, teeth gritted as the water floods his mouth, making one last, frantic attempt to reach the girl, the girl with three voices.  
  
 _"Don't leave us here!"_  
  
There is a shrill sound in his ears, and it is pulling him back, pulling him up, pulling him out--  
  
Leon's eyes stare at the poster babe tacked to his ceiling, but he does not see her at all. He stares at an abandoned daughter inside his own head, and he gasps and he shudders in the early morning light, with tears running down his face.  
  
He picks up the loudly ringing phone, and listens to the voices on the other end.  
  
"Yeah," he says, and knows his voice is shaking. "Merry Christmas."


End file.
